


In These Shoes

by Siria



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-25
Updated: 2011-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-28 02:12:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/302605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jessica, details, and timing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In These Shoes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [becka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/becka/gifts).



Her first paycheck as managing partner of her own firm was slow in coming—there were start-up costs, after all, not to mention the inevitable delay between the time the first invoices went out and the time when the first payments came in. Jessica received the check on the first of the month, and that Saturday she rang the doorbell of an unobtrusive storefront on Madison Avenue. Inside, the salespeople were friendly but not obsequious, which was just as she preferred. Bowing and scraping always seemed gauche.

They brought three boxes out in quick succession for Jessica to look over, the Louboutins nestled inside them in crisp white tissue paper. She tried on the second pair—four inch heels, the red sole a flashing contrast to the black patent of the leather—and nodded in approval at her reflection in the mirror before she had the sales assistant wrap them up. Eight hundred dollars on a pair of shoes would have her living on ramen noodles for a few weeks, but she'd subsisted on worse when she'd put herself through Harvard, and all without ever letting anyone know it. Now that she was on the cusp of achieving what she'd worked so long for, however, she saw no need to hide it.

Jessica wore the shoes to her weekly meeting with the partners that Monday. She didn't think that either Gerald or Frederick noticed—they were the kind of men who delegated the purchase of their wives' birthday and Christmas presents to their personal assistants, who didn't care if they shopped at Tiffany's or Van Cleef and Arpels once they looked the part—but she was quite sure that their personal assistants did. Appearances mattered, Jessica knew; so did the fact that one always had multiple audiences.

That first pair she'd purchased were long since out of style, but they still sat on a shelf in her closet. They caught Jessica's eye sometimes when she was selecting a pair to wear—a blue peeptoe slingback for an evening out, or charcoal pumps for a negotiating session with opposing counsel—and never failed to raise a tiny smile. In their own way, those shoes were a trophy, one whose value was perhaps all the higher thanks to the fact that its meaning was intelligible only to Jessica.

Her birthday was in April, and her concession to the day was to wear one of her more frivolous pairs to the office—never something inappropriate, but in a colour somewhat more showy than was usual at Pearson Hardman. Jessica's awareness of them put a little more spring in her step, something all the more appreciated when she was called down to the mailroom to deal with a suspected case of petty theft. It wasn't a difficult matter to figure out; in fact, it would have been entirely forgettable, if not for one of the clerks who'd spoken up in Jefferson's defence. He'd had a surprising amount of assurance for someone still in his teens—not simply self-confidence, which was a different matter entirely—and, she'd noticed, wore a pair of highly polished lace-up shoes. It was a small thing, but one which set him apart, in Jessica's eyes, from his peers, who almost universally wore scuffed loafers.

She went back to her office, called in her PA, and asked her to find out that clerk's name. "Harvey Spector," Marianne told her. "He started two weeks ago. Will there be anything else?"

Jessica inclined her head, thought for a moment. "Not for now, thank you." As important as paying attention to the details, she'd learned, was the skill of getting your timing just right—Jessica Pearson had learned how to wait.


End file.
